Top 5: Burke’s closes, Grand Prix TV deal and Restaurant Week

The Daily Record welcomed reporter Rachel Bernstein to our business staff this week, who wasted no time churning out stories for the paper–two of which made this week’s top 5 staff business stories. Other stories that made it included an iconic Baltimore cafe’s closing and more bad news for the Hollywood Casino Perryville. Here they are:

1. Baltimore’s Restaurant Week shrinks – by Rachel Bernstein

Baltimore’s City’s Restaurant Week will be shorter this winter, but similar promotions in Baltimore and Howard counties will be longer than in previous years.

Baltimore City has downsized its promotion of prix fixe meals to eight days, and so far only 80 restaurants have signed up to participate. While event promoters said a few more restaurants are expected to join the list last-minute, 98 restaurants participated for last winter’s Restaurant Week. Baltimore’s Restaurant Week is Jan. 21-30.

2. Long past glory days, Burke’s shuts its doors – by Melody Simmons

As he began to pack away decades of memorabilia Monday, Bill Beery III recalled the glory days of Burke’s Café & Restaurant.

There was former Gov. Marvin Mandel and his entourage of lawyers eating there nearly each day during his corruption trial in 1977, Broadway Joe Namath and other New York Jets teammates ordering steaks before moving on to party at the Playboy Club up the street, and the regulars that included local newspaper scribes, attorneys and Internal Revenue Service agents.

3. Hopkins gets $30M gift for new engineering building – by Nicholas Sohr

Johns Hopkins University alumnus John C. Malone donated $30 million to build an engineering research building on the Homewood campus, the school announced Monday.

Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels called Malone’s donation a “truly transformational gift” that will bring together students and faculty from across the university. The donation is the largest ever made to the Whiting School of Engineering.

4. Baltimore Grand Prix race gets TV deal – by Rachel Bernstein

The inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix will get TV coverage on two major networks, thanks to a new deal struck by American Le Mans Series, ESPN and ABC.

Le Mans said it has reached a multi-year deal with the two networks, both owned by the Walt Disney Co., to broadcast its races, including the Baltimore races this September. The Le Mans race will be shown live on ABC.

5. Perryville casino revenue dips again in December – by Nicholas Sohr

Hollywood Casino Perryville continued to lag state revenue expectations in December, generating $6.5 million during its third full month of operation.

Each of the casino’s 1,500 slot machines averaged just $140.58 in revenue, well below the $210 the state expected from the casino Cecil County, according to figures released Wednesday by the Maryland Lottery Agency.